‘grand Rabbi’ a Myth, Reich Jews Declare

There is no grand rabbinate in Berlin, the All-German Jewish Representative Body declared yesterday in connection with foreign press reports on a certain Rabbi Fraenkel, called in newspaper reports the Grand Rabbi of Berlin. Rabbi Fraenkel lived in Berlin as a private individual holding no communal position, the statement declared.

Rabbi Fraenkel was severely beaten and tortured by Nazi storm troopers in the early days of the Hitler regime. When the story appeared in foreign newspapers Hermann Wilhelm Goering, Nazi chief, denied the existence of Rabbi Fraenkel, only to be confronted with photographs of the rabbi swathed in adages and bearing marks of a brutal beating. Rabbi Fraenkel has since left Germany.